I wrote about this at my blog a few days ago and clearly struck a chord because I got linked to all over the place and saw a huge spike in visitors (how cool!). I have written a book based on my experiences working in Ops for a small bush commuter in Alaska. Flying Cold is about all the insane flying that was done to support a broken down airline and how dangerous it was, and how damned cold, and how funny. Basically, it is the truth because that is what flying in AK is like. But.....I wrote about guys busting FAA regs left and right and so clearly wasn’t going to correctly identify them. Plus, who remembers what all of our conversations were back then? And who remembers why some guys did somethings? And - well - some stuff that happened at other commuters was interesting too and I wanted to include those stories. So I gathered it all and wrote an honest book about professional pilots in AK, but I didn’t write nonfiction.

There’s a huge difference there.

The problem for me has been that agents and one major publisher have shown interest - have said they are interested - but only if I change it to nonfiction. Only if I “change the names”. And since I won’t do this, I’m still shopping it around. When I wrote about all this (in light of James Frey) I heard from a bunch of authors with the same problem. We want to call our books fiction, the pubs and agents want to buy it as memoir.

So here’s my question: just what the hell is a memoir? Can’t a novel have elements of truth (seem true) and be just as effective? Why are we so memoir crazy in this country lately? And how do we change this - how do we convince publishers to publish novels again with the same excitement as memoir?

Has anyone else run into this problem?

I read your great post on it, too! 

I haven’t run into the situation myself, but I sympathize, and as an unapologetic fiction writer, I’m annoyed at the devaluation of the skill it takes to lie entertainingly and convincingly.  When did old-fashioned fiction, even largely inspired by experiences and people from life, become so shamefully unacceptable?  I wrote a post on the subject called What Would Tolstoy Think?  Currently, I hold some silly hopes that this pendulum swing will make publishers feel comfortable with the fiction label again, especially for authors like you with compelling stories and no desire to be sued for defamation.

Ah - see that is part of what bothers me too. When did it become somehow “less” to write a good fiction story? Why allow something like memoir to even exist if publishers know that it is a fictionalized recounting of true events. Doesn’t that just mean it is fiction? And why isn’t that enough for the reader - to read a good story, period.

I must have missed when this bizarre publishing shift took place, but I’m quite annoyed now to see that it exists. Novels are important, short stories are important, and memoirs - I think memoirs need to go.

It’s an autobiography or it is fiction. And if you don’t have enough truth for a full autobiography, then write an essay on the subject and that is fine too. Otherwise, otherwise I just can’t figure out what we are trying to do here.

Why are we even bothering with this category at all?

Unfortunately, the trend lately seems to be “reality” is what sells.  As evidenced by the reality TV shows, the tell-all celebrity nonfiction, the heart-rendering life and death drama nonfiction, the “I’ve been there and survived” stories, yadda, yadda, yadda.  Someday with any luck, fiction wil again be the “in thing” to read.  All fiction is obviously based on fact--learned or experienced that is embellished or half-remembered and used within a planned story.  Look at Marquez’ work that is based on his own life and native roots, but beautifully reworked into 100 Years of Solitude.

I think that the devaluation of fiction comes from two sides.  First, there’s too much fiction out there.  I think publishers are reluctant to put even more “debut novels” out there.  They often don’t do a very good job of marketing and publicizing these books, and selling the several thousand copies required to recoup the publisher’s investment is difficult.  I don’t think the publishers neceissarily do a very good job, it just seems to me that this is how it works.  The competition in the memoir genre is not as fierce, and my perception is that memoirs are a lot easier to package and sell to the public.

Which brings me to my second point.  My years as a bookseller taught me that most readers, unfortunately, are reluctant to take a risk when buying a book.  Most people are interested in certain things and bored to death by others, they also have certain sensibilities that they don’t want offended.  Buying an unknown novel puts them at risk of finding it boring or being offended by it.  Most fiction isn’t well-defined enough on the all-important cover for the average reader to to decide to buy it.

Memoirs, on the other hand, are very easy to define on a book cover, people feel like they know what they’re getting and all these reluctant readers are more likely to pick it up.

I certainly saw the same fear when I worked as a bookseller - you are right that people are cautious to move out of their comfort zone (part of why some writers do so well until they change genres). It just seems like there have to be a ton of novels about addiction and recovery though, that are in many ways similar to James Frey’s. What I can’t figure out is why readers today seem to need to believe it is a true story before they will reach for it.

I can’t help but think about all the books in my life that have meant so much, and few of them are nonfiction. I have read a ton of nonfiction (including some memoirs) but it is fiction that tops my list of life reads (beginning with the classic Little Women which we all know was loosely based on Alcott’s life).

I just can’t help but think that somebody in marketing somewhere decided that memoirs would be the big thing and so that’s what got pushed by the publishers and bookstores and here we are. Of course this is all my “star chamber” paranoia rearing up again, but you have to admit that sometimes this Frey thing seems like a giant conspiracy! ha

I’m facing the dilemma in the opposite direction. I’ve written a memoir, as a memoir, but my family doesn’t agree with what I’ve written, so they’d prefer I publish it as fiction (or not at all). I don’t think it’s really fiction, and I’m rather certain it wouldn’t sell as fiction (I’m not so sure it would sell as memoir either). There are definitely a few people I’ve made into composite characters to keep the story a little simpler, and there are a couple events I’ve told out of sequence—but that’s not what folks are complaining about. It’s mainly that they view themselves as heroes, and they aren’t portrayed that way in the memoir. So the knife cuts both ways, apparently.

Wordmunger addresses the biggest issue for memoir writers - how to stay true to yourself and your writing, yet make the work publishable (i.e. “marketable").

With the recent reactions toward James Frey, I believe the way of the memoir is extinct. No one wants to read them. I have received comments on non-fiction essays where “proof” was required for publication.

Personally, I think it’s the political climate. As a group, Americans want answers… for the “war,” for Osama, for the election of this lame duck president. The smallest fib or exaggeration is overblown. Even in the “red” states, the need for knowledge curbs the need for action.

I hadn’t read this thread before writing my journal entry about Literary Memory (which you can see on the MetaxuCafe home or on my Website). But I think that it applies. The fact is human memory is unreliable. So, how can memoirs be considered pure non-fiction?